Falco cuts ribbon on Raglan

The official opening of the Raglan mine on the Ungava Peninsula, coming some 40 years after the discovery of the area’s nickel deposits, was nothing if not a celebration of persistence. And that mine operator Falconbridge (FL-T) made a point of inviting a group of “old-timers” (some of whom bristled at the description) could not have been more appropriate.

Early explorationists such as Sandy Mutch, Lorne Wrigglesworth and Lionel Kilburn, and later developers like Pat Raleigh and Lars Vannmann, finally saw their persistence pay off at the opening ceremony.

Sulphide mineralization was discovered in the Cape Smith fold belt in the 1930s. But it was only in the 1950s that systematic modern exploration started; it was spearheaded at first by Asarco Exploration, which drilled off some resources at the Katinniq and Cross Lake targets.

Raglan Nickel Mines and a Falconbridge subsidiary, Bilson Quebec Mines, followed Asarco in the late 1950s, and discovered a series of nickel-copper showings in the belt along a 60-km strike length. The two companies merged in 1966 to form New Quebec Raglan Mines, consolidating the properties, and the new company sank a 283-metre exploration shaft on the Donaldson deposit in 1969.

Feasibility studies through the 1970s could not make the project work, despite resources in the 14-million-tonne range. Raglan loomed as one of those great deposits that was unlikely to make a mine.

In the early 1990s, Falconbridge (which had by this time absorbed New Quebec Raglan) decided to give the project another try. The short Arctic shipping season had always hurt the project’s economics, but Falconbridge financed an experimental trip into Deception Bay by a bulk carrier, the MV Arctic, in early 1991. The Arctic’s success made it conceivable that the proposed shipping season could be extended long enough to make Raglan feasible.

A $486-million capital investment later, Raglan is an operating mine, with an open pit on the Zone 2 deposit and an underground decline on the Katinniq deposit. The project started with a minable reerve of just over 14 million tonnes, grading 3.17% nickel and 0.88% copper, and a project-wide resource, in all categories, of 22 million tonnes grading 3.06% nickel and 0.87% copper. Other pits will be brought on-stream over the next five years, with stripping on the next pit, Zone 3, slated to begin in 1999.

The pit is contract-mined by a consortium that includes mine contracting firm Kiewit and two Ungava Inuit villages, Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq. The underground mine is operated by Falconbridge and uses mainly cut-and-fill stoping. In frozen rock, water control is vital, so drillers make brine to use as a drilling fluid.

The decline has two portals, one serving the underground mine and the other permitting access by ore trucks from the pit. Pit and underground ores alike go into an underground crusher, and then to the mill by conveyor.

The mill and powerhouse are the heart of the operation. Six locomotive engines serve as generator sets, with four running, one on stand-by, and one down for maintenance at any time. In the event of a total failure, smaller generators can supply enough power for the camp’s needs.

In the processing plant, an autogenous grinding mill feeds a ball mill, which in turn feeds a bank of flotation cells that produce a single bulk nickel-copper concentrate, with about 16% nickel and 4% copper. The concentrate is dried and then trucked to the mine’s harbor in Deception Bay for storage until the shipping season begins — generally around July.

The tailings are dried too, down to about a 10% moisture content. This allows Raglan to windrow and grade its tailings rather than pipe out a slurry, thereby contributing to the operation’s environmental cleanliness (the mill tailings are essentially an inert fill that can be safely spread over the disposal area). The process water is recycled into the mill under normal circumstances, and the operators estimate that no more than 10% will have to be treated and discharged.

All the mine buildings are founded on driven steel piles, and sit on platform slabs above ground level to keep the permafrost from thawing and shifting. The one exception is the mill-powerhouse complex, half of which is built slab-on-grade, with a cooling system running beneath the slab.

Falconbridge decided early on to develop a constructive relationship with the local Inuit communities. Discussions with the people in the local villages started in 1991, and in 1995 the company and the Makivik Corporation, an Inuit-managed regional development agency, signed an agreement that sets up a trust fund for local community development and assures local hiring and contracting opportunities for Inuit businesses. The high regard the local communities have for the project showed in a warm reception for the visiting Falconbridge staff and in the enthusiastic comments of Makivik’s treasurer, Peter Adams, who told the guests that “to have a facility like this one is a feat in itself.”